Has Obamacare Turned Uncle Sam into a Drug Dealer?

Sally Pipes
, ContributorI cover health policy as President of the Pacific Research InstituteOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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Obamacare is fueling the opioid epidemic. That’s according to an explosive new report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The health law expanded Medicaid coverage to millions of childless, able-bodied adults. Some of them have used their free coverage to obtain prescriptions for powerful opioids, which they have then sold on the black market. In effect, the U.S. government is paying for many of the addictive pills that directly and indirectly kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.

It's time for Congress to roll back the Medicaid expansion -- and fundamentally reform the broken program so that it protects taxpayers and better serves the truly needy.

President Obama's health law initially required states to expand Medicaid coverage to anyone who earns less than 138 percent of the poverty line. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the expansion was optional. Nevertheless, 31 states and the District of Columbia took the federal government up on its offer. In November 2017, Maine’s voters approved a referendum directing the state to expand Medicaid.

It's easy to see why. The federal government agreed to pay 100 percent of the expansion's cost in 2014, 2015, and 2016. In 2017, the feds ponied up 95 percent of the cost. That share gradually drops to 90 percent by 2020.

This cost-sharing arrangement for the expansion population is far more generous than for the traditional Medicaid population. For the latter group, the federal government picks up between 50 percent and 80 percent of the cost. State governments cover the rest.

In other words, thanks to Obamacare, the federal government offers states more money for enrolling able-bodied, childless adults in their Medicaid programs than it does for children and the destitute elderly. That's perverse.